much interested in women's clothes, but now he imagined Amy in cerulean blue silk with silver net; in dusky pink muslin trimmed with blond; in pristine white with roses in her hair.
He realized the work was getting harder as the dress became tight and began to twist on itself. Amy continued to turn her end, grimacing with the effort, determined to squeeze every last drop she could.
The dress coiled into a tighter and tighter bundle, and Harry and Amy were drawn closer and closer together. When Amy gave the final, grunting twist and said, "There!" she looked up and found herself inches from him.
Her mouth went dry and her head felt light. It was all that effort. She saw the fine chiseled shape of the end of his nose and thought it very pleasing indeed. She raised her eyes, and there was a warmth in his which shivered through her in the strangest way.
They were just standing there. She pulled the dress from his hold and hurried over to hang it in front of the stove, being careful that it couldn't catch fire.
That would be typical of today, she decided, that her clothes and her very shelter burn down around her ears.
As she stretched the cloth to try to lessen the creases she wondered what had made her feel so funny. It was this situation. In this predicament it was hardly surprising that she felt peculiar. For the first time in her life she would quite like to have a case of the vapors if she had any idea how to do it. She could at least appreciate the appeal. Just to let go, give up, and let someone else take care of everything.
Let him take care of everything?
She checked that her drapery was all securely in place and turned. He was looking out the window. He glanced at her. "Still very heavy," he said easily. "I think it will be at least an hour before it stops."
So he hadn't felt anything strange. That made her lapse even worse. Here was the one man she had met who treated her as a normal person and she was turning silly.
He was saying something else. "But you'll need that long for your dress to even begin to dry. You know," he said as he left the window, "I don't feel it's at all wise for you to try to travel five miles in damp clothes on a chilly day."
"What else do you suggest?" Amy heard the edge of sarcasm in her voice and regretted it. She was dreading the trip home.
"You could go to Ashridge Farm, and I could ride over and reassure your family. Do you have parents still alive, by the way?" The question seemed to have importance for him.
"No, my father died two years ago, my mother six."
"I'm sorry. Who is your guardian, then?"
"My uncle, but he doesn't live with us. We have an aunt to lend us respectability." She couldn't understand why he seemed to find this displeasing, too. He must be a very high stickler. What would he think to find out that the de Lacys lived almost entirely in the kitchen - certainly in the winter months - and did almost everything for themselves because they felt guilty at asking anything of their two elderly and unpaid retainers?
"About Ashridge Farm," he prompted her.
Amy gathered her wits. "I suppose it is my only option," she admitted. "If you don't mind riding over to Stonycourt."
"I will be delighted," he said with a little bow.
He seemed to have turned rather serious. Amy felt uncomfortable with the lull in conversation and so she walked over to the table, hitching up her blanket so it didn't trail on the muddy floor. She studied the doll there. "It's an automaton!" she declared in delight.
He came to join her. "A broken one."
Amy sat down and touched the silk skirt with a gentle finger. "She's lovely. I had a doll once very like her. French, I think."
"Yes, but the mechanism is German. I'm mending her."
"Why?"
He looked up a little coolly. "Because otherwise she'd go on the rubbish dump."
Amy realized her question had seemed unfeeling and flushed. "I meant, why you?"
He sat down in front of the doll. "It's a hobby. I like to fix things, and these are often so beautiful it seems very worth the trouble. My mother finds them for me."
"You haven't told me anything of your family," she said. It was only a second later she knew that the curiosity she